While many people think of hostels as run down hotels with cramped rooms and few amenities, there are many properties that can actually make you feel as if you're staying at a resort. For those who want comfort on a budget, here are 10 excellent luxury hostels from around ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
Italy
10 luxury hostels from around the world
While many people think of hostels as run down hotels with cramped rooms and few amenities, there are many properties that can actually make you feel as if you're staying at a resort. For those who want comfort on a budget, here are 10 excellent luxury hostels from around ...Gangi: The Italian hill town the guidebooks forgot to mention
Have you ever fallen in love with a place that doesn't merit a mention in most guidebooks and felt conflicted about the its obscurity? On the one hand, you don't want it to be "discovered," but on the other, the snub feels like a bit of an insult, even for you, the newcomer ...Upcoming travel blogger conferences for 2012
If the word "conference" immediately conjures images of tipsy, poly-suit clad conventioneers, comic book geeks, or coma-inducing workshops, you obviously haven't attended a travel blogger gathering.
'Tis the season for some of the year's biggest travel industry blowouts. ...Cruise line makes offer, gets sued, waits
The cruise line that owns Costa Concordia is trying to move forward, past recovery and initial assistance efforts to make an offer to non-injured passengers. Still without conclusive forensic reasons or blame placed for the tragic grounding of January 13, Costa Cruises faces ...Untouched Italy: Exploring Basilicata through a dream
While many people go to Italy to explore the wonderful cities of Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan, there many off-the-radar areas also worth discovering. One of these regions is Basilicata, which Seattle, Washington, filmmaker Matthew Brown captures in this ...
Lampedusa: Italy's loneliest off-season island
Lampedusa is Italy's southernmost island. Geologically part of Africa, it sits about 70 miles from the Tunisian mainland and a good 125 miles from Sicily. If the island sounds familiar to you, that's probably because it's been in the news quite a bit recently.
In the ...Photo of the Day: Monterosso - CinqueTerre, Italy
Our Photo of the Day comes from flickr member stellarviewer and is an HDR composite image of five D-200 images showing the town of Monterosso in the Cinque Terre section of Italy using a Nikon D200.
Cinque Terre is a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera in ...Video: Starlings in Rome
If you needed yet another reason to add to the list of defensible reasons I am sure you already have for visiting Rome, the scores of Starlings in Rome each winter should make for worthwhile incentive. Nearly 5 million starlings pour into Rome during the winter of each ...
Cruise tragedy calls for increased focus on safety
On the heels of the Costa Concordia cruise tragedy, where a once-proud ocean going vessel now lay on its side off the coast of Italy, calls for increased safety standards and procedures are being made. While history will remember the Concordia event as more of a near-miss ...Cruise accident "like a scene from Titanic" says passenger
(Updated 8:10AM EDT) After running aground off the coast of Italy Friday night, an unknown number of passengers are reported dead as a luxury cruise ship sinks and dawn reveals details of the tragic accident.
"It was like a scene from the Titanic,'' journalist Mara ...Get to know the real Milan, Italy, through Milan Dreaming
While spending a few months living in Milan, Italy, New York-based filmmaker Francesco Paciocco decided he wanted to create a short film called "Milan Dreaming" that told the story of Milan through its essence, people, and places. The background music, "A Necessary End" ...
Photo of the Day - Sicilian man
This elegant gentleman was captured in Sicily by Flickr user TravelSeminar. The weathered creases that line his face, the pulled back curtains and shy grin all suggest a moment of welcome and openness. It's the perfect visual accompaniment to a brand new year - take it ...Is the Colosseum crumbling?
Economic instability, a change of government, and now this.
It looks like Italy's most famous landmark, the Colosseum, may be crumbling. The Culture Ministry has launched an investigation after eyewitnesses spotted bits of stone falling off the Roman ruin on two different ...Life, death and the best truckstop restaurant in Italy
Paul was dying. At lunch. In Rome. And just around the corner from the Trevi Fountain. Which didn't seem like worst place in the world to spend the last moments of one's life. Ten minutes earlier, the waiter had put a bowl of spaghetti alle vongole in front of Paul, the ...How to access free WiFi in Rome
Anyone who has ever tried to access free WiFi in Rome probably won't be surprised by a recent Business Insider headline proclaiming that Italians Don't Care About the Internet.
According to a report released by ISTAT, Italy's official statistics bureau, only 54.5% of ...Pompeii continues to collapse
It's an ongoing saga that continues to crumble. In Pompeii, Italy, it appears this Roman ruin may soon be in ruins.
According to various sources, this past week it was discovered that a pillar supporting one of the pergolas in the Roman ruin had collapsed after standing ...New smartphone app helps food enthusiasts with all of their olive oil needs
A new smartphone app for iPhone and iPad has just been released that will help food enthusiasts answer all of their questions and solve all of their problems concerning olive oil. The app, Olive Oil IQ, was created by luxury travel writer and olive oil aficionado Sharri ...Where they ate: chefs' and food writers' best meals of 2011, part I
For an increasingly large sector of humanity, eating has become more than just stabbing at something with a fork, putting it in our mouths and masticating. Chefs are perceived as rockstars, the food blog-o-sphere is inhaling Miracle Grow, and eating has been given a kind ...Collect virtual passport stamps with VisaStamper
It's a favorite ritual for many travelers to leaf through their passport (often while waiting in an immigration line), reminiscing on each stamp and the destination it represents. When a passport is lost or expired, losing all those hard-earned stamps can be tragic. ...10 reasons to travel to Ljubljana
When I found cheap airfare from Istanbul to Ljubljana, I didn't find many other travelers who'd been there or even say for sure which country it's in. The tiny of country of Slovenia is slightly smaller than New Jersey and its capital city isn't known for much other than ...
